No history has its beginning at a particular point in time. The history of the Jews of Philadelphia did not begin when the first Jew set foot on the shores of the Delaware. Long before that, the stirring of events in the cauldron of Europe created forces which brought him here, and long before that there were other events which in turn created their successors. As seeds are carried on the wind to sprout and grow into new plants, so individuals are carried on the currents of historical movements to begin a new life in a new location.
It should be realized that, as John Bach MacMaster first pointed out so trenchantly when he named his major work "The History of the People of the United States," history is not the story of individuals, but the movement of masses of individuals. No single tree grew, but a forest. The country was not settled by Captain John Smith or William Penn; they were merely leaders whose claim to fame rests upon the fact that millions of no-names decided to build a home in a new land which they too had believed in. American Jewish history is not the story of Asser Levy or Haym Salomon or Judah P. Benjamin or Rebecca Gratz. They were but a few of many. And it is the many whose story we seek. This is basic in American Jewish history, as it is in all history.
